The Synagogue is proud to partner with the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting 2022 for a special dinner and lecture hosted in the Synagogue’s Sukkah. Dr. Gabrielle Berlinger (UNC-Chapel Hill) will address the topic “Building Structures: Ritual Structures for Radical Inclusion.” The talk will be accompanied by a catered dinner available for $18 per person. Please use the link below to make your reservations. See below for a fuller synopsis of Dr. Berlinger’s talk.

“Building Resistance: Ritual Structures for Radical Inclusion”

 Gabrielle Berlinger (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 How might an ancient religious ritual address urgent social and political needs? This question emerged from eight years (2007-2015) of ethnographic study of the observance of Sukkot, the annual Jewish festival that commemorates the Israelites’ Biblical journey through the Sinai Desert to the Promised Land. This presentation explores this question through the holiday’s central rite of building and “dwelling” in a temporary ritual structure (sukkah) meant to evoke the physical and metaphoric experience of wandering in the wild. The flexibility of this Jewish tradition is revealed by a rich material diversity of constructions and interpretive diversity of uses across contexts. Significantly, in 2010-2011, Sukkot coincided with the global Occupy Movement and peak numbers of Sudanese and Eritrean individuals migrating into Israel in search of asylum—two circumstances that highlighted the contemporary search for “home” and struggle to belong in daily as well as ritual life. As we reflect upon continuing upheavals around the world today, we consider how the sukkah endures as a form of resistance and structure of solidarity.